


kindling

by blacksatinpointeshoes



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: 12x100, Alternate Reality, Fire, Gen, Smoking, non-maincord swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29660064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacksatinpointeshoes/pseuds/blacksatinpointeshoes
Summary: In the Season 4 Elections, Edric Tosser is one of many affected by the Alternate Reality decree.
Relationships: Edric Tosser & Rivers Rosa, Edric Tosser & the Chicago Firefighters, Edric Tosser & the Chicago Firestarters
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13
Collections: We Are Fanwork Creators





	kindling

**Author's Note:**

> for readability purposes considering the 12x100:  
> -this swaps between perspectives every scene, from og!edric to alt!edric.  
> -the timespan is roughly season 1-6, with the majority of it taking place during season 5.

1\. Rivers thinks - no, knows - that Edric is full of shit. Not just because of the whole blaseball thing, even though that’s its own can of worms. As personality traits go, Edric’s suck. She doesn’t think about them much. She has absolutely joked that she doesn’t care whether they live or die. 

Maybe it’s the messy mohawk, or the way that his smile is lopsided, or how his septum piercing is _always_ fucking crooked. Maybe it’s how Edric is always delightfully off-kilter but still stands firm, like he can save everyone.

Whatever. They don’t really talk.

* * *

2\. What no one gets about starting fires is that fires are the last beautiful thing after midnight. Edric gets it. Edric will sit in the smoke until his eyes sting, until it clings to their clothes, their hair, singes his jacket. What no one gets about starting fires is that fires don’t ask questions or demand explanations. What no one gets about starting fires is that Edric is fucking good at it. 

There’s only so much to savor. Life is short. Everyone thinks Edric misunderstands that quote, but he knows he has it right: life is short, and flammable, and handed to you already burning.

* * *

3\. Tyreek has been dead a full season when Edric nearly goes into shock on second base, but somehow, Edric feels like he has failed them. Tyreek reserved a special sort of kind smile for Edric, one that encouraged him to _keep up the good work,_ and Edric wasn’t really one to turn down a smile from a former Justice. 

He’s lying on a spinning ground with static in his ears, wondering what Tyreek would think of him, one of Chicago’s chosen, incapacitated. Stupid.

Rivers hefts them to their feet, scowling, but she’s gentle.

* * *

4\. No one mentioned how much it would hurt, being ripped between worlds. Edric’s skin feels raw, almost peeling. He looks sunburned in a way he is typically too brown for. Everyone is looking at them, wincing in the bright sun, their lungs breathing in too-fresh air. Rivers. Baby. No Tyreek. Alright, so that stayed the same. 

At his side is fucking Justice, of all people. Out of everyone, he’d be stuck in this brave new world with the world’s softest marble statue. 

Everyone is looking at them like they’re used to seeing him smile. 

“What?” Edric says, already on the defensive.

* * *

5\. Edric the Chosen of Chicago lights his own Shabbat candles. They are the first and only fires he has started since his arrival. Somehow, here, despite the work, they are always cold. It seems that even Rivers likes him less here.

The Dispatch, Mx. Chicago herself, is not quieter, but different. Edric doesn’t think she _loves_ him less, or anything - he’s Chosen, right? He answered the Call; he’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to. It’s his fate or something. He—

He feels very alone. They wonder if their other self is enjoying the team. Someone should.

At least he has Justice.

* * *

6\. No one is letting Edric breathe, as if they’re trying to throw logs upon logs of team collaboration onto a healthy fire. All these people know how to do is snuff a flame. 

The worst is when it’s over normal shit. Edric had a cigarette outside the Firehouse and Rivers looked personally offended. “Edric’s straightedge,” she says, by way of explanation.

They tip their head back. “I’m Edric,” they say. 

Or — “Sorry. Just that Edric was allergic to peanuts,” from Caleb, a bit mournfully, after he found them eating trail mix in the kitchen. 

Edric starts a fire after that one. 

* * *

7\. Maybe, Edric thinks one night, the prophecy was bullshit. Maybe it was about some other kid born on his birthday. Maybe it was an accident, or a trick, or a mistaken signal, or maybe the prophecy belongs to the other Edric now. 

He’s a Firefighter. He was Chosen. They were supposed to be able to sort this out, not lie in his bed and cry about duplicate versions of his coworkers from another dimension. 

Giving in and being like them, being a Firestarter, never occurs to him. At his roots he is Chicago’s baby, _his_ Chicago, until the very end. 

* * *

8\. What no one gets is that Edric wasn’t _forced_ to start fires. He wasn’t some poor lost soul, tricked by the Firestarters into becoming the worst version of himself, or whatever sob story everyone expects from the dark dimension they came from. 

Justice is quietly, dutifully pleased with their new life. Under her stoicism, she makes it clear that she prefers the Firefighters, and Edric never really had much team loyalty, but they do still feel betrayed. 

Not everyone can step into their own skin and live up to the expectations. Not everyone wants to.

* * *

9\. It’s a forest fire. Edric takes months to decide, but finally settles on burning away dead underbrush, coaxing the flame to the brittle, eager branches, helping the seeds beneath germinate and the cycle of life begin again. 

Edric always knew how beautiful fire was, but never under the gaze of creation, never nurtured, never purposeful. This is _alive_ , dancing, warm. 

It is a thing of his own making, an act of balance, renewal, endings and beginnings all in one. The other version of Caleb claps him on the back. “Good work.”

Edric looks into the flame, equal parts besotted and ashamed.

* * *

10\. The first postseason Edric pitches is the postseason the Firefighters win. He’s not stupid or brash enough to chalk it up to himself - for gods’ sakes, he let through 12 runs against the Jazz Hands - but still. It feels like a beginning. It’s the first thing aside from firestarting that sends elation giddy through their veins, the team - _their team_ \- surrounding them. 

Rivers, who pitched the winning game like the ace she is, looks at Edric with a familiar annoyance. There’s that smug smile, one corner higher than the other. He beams at her. 

She cuffs him on the head. 

* * *

11\. If asked, Edric would say that he wanted to go home. Of course he would; that’s where his people are. It’s been his answer for the past few seasons, one as thoughtless as saying that yellow is his favorite color because of that one time someone made fun of his sister for liking it. 

But slowly he realizes his people _are_ here, as the dust settles. They sit in the smoke until their eyes sting, until it clings to their clothes, their hair. 

The jacket he has picked up fits snug around his shoulders. It was made for him. 

* * *

12\. If asked, Edric would say that they weren’t the person the team was expecting. Maybe they still have the messy mohawk and septum piercing, and maybe he still stands like the world rests on his shoulders, but he’s not the _same._

But they find trinkets in their old room, little things. Edric’s favorite chips. Shitty drawings. Journal entries about fate and freedom and, in apprehensive script, being a hero. A box of matches. It’s like looking in a mirror, not like Edric will ever mention it. 

But regardless, they both hear the City, and answer the Call.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to the ffs lore campground for getting me really attached to edric tosser. thanks to stara and ang for looking it over!


End file.
